


if you wish deeply enough, if you fight hard enough

by ivyspinners



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caretaking, Childbirth, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Fix-It, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 17:21:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11166504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: The ocean air shimmered, and suddenly she could see Steve drifting back to shore like so much flotsam, left to bake under the hot sun. His skin darkened as the sun crossed the sky, until at dusk, a battered fishing vessel pulled up to a rock close by, and someone shouted from the distance–Dreams can change the world.And finally, a voice drier, far less vague, than the sea's whisper: "I suggest the south of France."





	if you wish deeply enough, if you fight hard enough

**Author's Note:**

> This story contains references to difficult childbirth and cesarean sections (nothing graphic, and with a happy ending).

On Themyscira, the paradise of Zeus's chosen, the only things to slip in were dreams. Powerful though he was, Zeus didn't have the power to stop them. No one did.

And Diana had dreamed.

Her earliest dreams were of sun and water, washing over her skin in turns; baked dry one moment and drowned the next. A sense of wonder as the world came into focus. _I dreamed of my creation_ , she told her mother once, and hadn't understood Hippolyta's alarm. Night-dreams, as much fantastical lie as prophecy.

Day-dreams were fantastical too, but they could at least be shaped into truth. She thought of battle (not war, she would later realize, but the thick of a fight) and trained her body for it. She thought of her mother's respect and love, and fought for it. She remembered duty, and let it settle on her shoulders.

Zeus's shield hid Themyscira from the world. Some parts of it leaked through anyway.

After her exodus, after entering Belgium, _after_ , Diana's dreams were different. There were nights that left her panting awake, surrounded by the dead of a town she hadn't saved after all. There were mornings when the sun rose to the center of the sky, glaring, and she remembered sunlight on the eaves of Themyscira's royal palace, overlooking the bustling market squares. There were moments in the day when explosions rocked behind her eyelids, and all Diana understood that a god might survive fire, but a human would not.

But one of the first lessons on Themyscira, where dreams might be prophecy or might be nought but wishes, was to tell truth from lies. And nothing was stronger than the truth.

This dream felt like a truth.

She stood on a rocky shore, waves crashing between boulders, nothing but sky and sea as far as the eye could see. The tide receded, abandoning the sea's drowned gifts; piles of driftwood bleached near-white, ropes of seaweed, and fragments of metal twisted by a great concussive force. Something scarlet whipped about on the wind, caught on a spike of the metal.

Her feet sank through wet sand as she went to investigate, the hairs on the back of her head rising. Diana had not had many true dreams before; they never portended something good.

As she drew closer, she saw an arm curled to that spike of metal. Closer still, and a body too, face-down in the sand.

The person was pale-haired, tall, with broad shoulders good for a fight. Their clothes were soaked through, clinging to a body that lay much too still.

"Are you awake?" she asked, and turned the person over so that he or she could breathe, if they were still capable of it.

He coughed; and _Diana_ stopped breathing.

The world fell silent, or she couldn't hear it. Diana could barely focus on that face, which she had thought lost. Her hand skittered from his shoulder to his face, his skin warm beneath her fingertips, and wanted to cry when he drew breath and coughed again.

Reality asserted itself again. She was dreaming, kneeling over this man's body as she had once before. Her knees pressed against sand, and sun beat down overhead, and she had been here before; this dream was of the past, not the future. The realization hurt like a second loss.

"It is cruel to make a lie feel so true," she said out loud, fingers still flat on Steve's cheek.

Dream might not deign to pay her any mind, but she was speaking in a dream; the lord of dreams, as much a concept as he was an entity, would hear.

 _There are no lies or truth there,_ the sea whispered back. _Only dreams that become reality if you wish deeply enough, if you fight hard enough._

In the corner of her eye, the ocean fluttered like folds of a great cloak, hanging off pale shoulders and eyes like inky black holes.

"No riddles," Diana said quietly. "Not with this."

The ocean air shimmered, and suddenly she could see–Steve drifting back to shore like so much flotsam, left to bake under the hot sun. His skin darkened as the sun crossed the sky, until at dusk, a battered fishing vessel pulled up to a rock close by, and someone shouted from the distance–

 _Dreams can change the world._ And finally, a voice drier, far less vague, than the sea's whisper: "I suggest the south of France."

Diana woke. She left the Western Front that night.

 

 

She found him in a fishing town on the southern coast of France, in a place haunted by ghosts. Mills studded the fields surrounding this town, lined beside a winding river; they stood, unmoving, in a sea of green. The architecture had not fallen into disrepair, but half the houses lay empty. Their young men had all joined one company of soldiers, and they had all fallen in a single day. Diana felt their absence by the closed grief in every pair of eyes she met.

His body was burned and his face was raw, and his eyes followed invisible beings whenever they were open, but he was alive. It was more than could be said for the sons of the village.

"We weren't sure anyone would find him in time to say goodbye," the village doctor told her.

"I'm not ready for that yet," Diana said, and rested her hand across Steve's heart. Beneath her palm, his chest rose and fell with each breath, and his breath, at least, came smooth and steady.

The doctor stared at her, gray and tired. "Most people aren't, until it arrives."

Death was a rare sight in Themyscira; Diana's people had mastered the island's threats one by one, in their hundreds of thousands of days there. Death looked like a kind, pale woman tattooed around the eyes, and in Diana's lifetime, had only visited Themyscira once until the world changed for them all. Death was not a rare sight beyond Zeus's shield but it seemed this world wasn't much better at accepting it.

Diana wasn't ready, and she thought the doctor wasn't either, as much death as he had seen. Still, he tended to Steve as though there were hope remaining; draped his body in wet wraps, soaked with a strong smelling herbal concoction that he said might prevent blood poisoning, but didn't always.

"You found him in time," he shrugged, and went back to scribbling in his notes. There might have been hope in his tiny smile.

Beneath her hand, Steve gasped, then started to thrash, caught in the throes of nightmare. He slapped at the hand on his chest, then–her heart caught in her throat–started to roll away as though he hadn't broken his leg in two places.

"Trap!" she could hear between his mutterings.

She let him go, then reached for his hands, lacing their fingers together. He tried to jerk away, moaning wordlessly. She didn't let go; she bent closer, voice soft. "You're all right. You're safe. You're safe." Diana paused. "We won."

Steve's struggles slowed, then stopped, as she spoke. He never once opened his eyes, but he turned in her direction, his grip on her hands suddenly fierce. Diana stroked his arm once, gentle now, and as she murmured to him, low, his face relaxed.

Diana had been built more for activity than for vigil, but she was an Amazon; both were in her blood. Her mother, as the queen, had tended to each of her people's last moments when she could. Diana sat in flickering firelight and watched beads of sweat pour off Steve's brow. Whatever happened, Diana would watch and do what she could; she would never turn away.

Sometimes, he woke, thrashing with such vigor she almost felt relief that he could summon strength. Her voice soothed him then, better than any medicine the doctor had to offer. Often, Steve moaned broken off words– _victory, poison. Please. Diana._

Her battle with Ares had woken something deep within her; Diana had taken barely a day to reach the south of France, and only a little longer to find Steve. But it hadn't woken healing gifts. She stayed as helpless when it came to this as when Antiope's life drained away.

The second most important fight in her life, maybe, and she couldn't take a part in it.

 

 

Steve's delirium broke on the fourth day, while Diana wasn't there.

She was halfway across the village, tearing across rain and mud to reach the house of a woman in labour. The woman's daughter had banged open the doctor's doors, soaked through like a drowned rat, trembling with the news that the baby wasn't coming _out_ , and so the midwife had sent her to find help. (It was a very experienced midwife, Diana would learn later, who had known in the second hour that the babe needed a different birth). The storm had cut off the mills, tearing the rickety bridge away in a flood; the girl swam through the storm, but her mother would be swept away.

The girl looked on the verge of tears.

"I will bring her," Diana said, standing from Steve's bed side. She rested a hand on he girl's shoulder, and knelt so their eyes were level. "Where is she?"

Afterwards, she stayed in the operating room, holding onto the woman's slippery hands. Lucille, as her name was, had fallen unconscious with a gas the Madam Rousseau administered, and she watched in taut silence as the doctor and his wife worked to bring the babe out, then stitch Lucille's body together again. She remembered Lucille–she had visited Doctor Rousseau on the day of Diana's arrival, and she had been kind, leaving sweetened bread rolls when she didn't need to.

More than once, Diana's vows to never look away were tested. The doctor worked efficiently, steady and experienced, but there was so much _blood_ , and Themyscira's scrolls had never mentioned this. Her knuckles were white across the table, and she nearly crushed its edges in her anxiety.

A lull had come in the storm when a baby's cry broke their taut silence. Diana's eyes snapped up from Lucille's face.

A baby–a newborn, the cord in its belly still attached, naked and _screaming_ and little purple face scrunched up in fury. As Diana watched, the blue tinge faded away into a fresh, dusky pink beneath the smears of blood.

"Bundle her up," the doctor's wife directed, thrusting the baby in her direction. "She will be cold."

Diana did as directed; blood smeared on her shirt and arms, but it was nothing compared to the strangeness of _holding_ a baby, nor the way Lucille lay, pale, but breathing steadily. It was the first another's blood stained her clothes without death following like a shadow. The doctor and his wife barely spared a glance in Diana's direction–together, they stitched, and massaged, and stitched again until Lucille's abdomen was closed. Doctor Rousseau peeled off the breathing mask once finished, breathing a sigh of relief.

The baby had quieted once warm, wrapped in a blanket of soft wool, held close to a comforting chest. Diana touched her face, the button nose, and stifled a gasp when the baby's mouth opened and tried to suck at her finger.

Only a minute away from the gas, and Lucille stirred, though her eyes weren't open.

"Lucille's daughter should be here," Diana said. When no one protested, she went to find her.

And find her she did–the girl wasn't in the front or guest rooms, as Diana had expected, nor was she standing beside the operating room's doorway, ear pressed to wood. Instead, she had crept into one of the sick rooms. Diana could hear the girl's voice coming from where Steve rested.

"I don't know how long Germany will hold," the girl said, as Diana approached. "The newspapers say we bring the battle to them, now."

"Best news I've heard all year," a man's voice, low and dry. "Almost."

It sounded so familiar, it punched the air out of Diana's lungs. She was at the doorway in an instant, the baby cradled in her arms, and stopped short at the sight.

Steve's eyes were open, staring at the ceiling; he turned at her footsteps, and when his eyes met hers, they held, focused for the first time in days. Shock chased away all other expression.

The girl jumped out of her chair. "Mama? Is she–?"

"Alive," Diana said blankly. "Madam Rousseau says she will recover."

She let the girl take her younger sister and dash away to the operating room, still stunned. Steve made a quick movement, like he wanted to rise, but winced and fell back to the bed again; he didn't break their gaze. Diana couldn't stop watching him, hungry for every expression that now crossed his face.

She was by his side before realizing she'd moved, hand on his unburned cheek, and yes, that was Steve turning to press closer to the touch, eyes wide.

"You're awake," she said, joy curling under her breast.

"Am I?" he asked, with wonder. His hand rose, brushing across her knuckles, calloused like hers and the best feeling in the world.

Diana nodded. Tears prickled in the corner of her eyes, but she couldn't stop smiling.

He turned his head, pressing a kiss to her palm, slow and gentle. Stubble grazed her skin.

"I'd ask you to pinch me, but – you're bleeding," he said, a note of alarm spiking his words. "Are you–"

"It's not my blood," Diana assured him. She leaned closer, bringing his hand to where streaks of red had smeared. Steve shuddered, breath quickening. "I just held a newborn baby."

Steve stared at her, and laughed until he coughed.

 

 

It took another three days until Steve was well enough to leave. They stayed long enough to see Lucille pull past the riskiest days for infection, and through the ceremony of baby Diana's baptism. (The ceremony was strange, new, but the atmosphere of worship was comforting in familiarity.)

"Born in a time of war," Steve said, when it was over.

"Perhaps. But she might grow up in a time of peace," Diana said.

When Diana left the Western Front, the German army had already been retreating, but they had clung to each piece of land as though it was worth a thousand lives. Diana spent her time disabling traps and digging out mines, but she hadn't had the heart to fight. Not over land. Not over pride. Her only consolation was that it would soon be over.

"One way or another," she said grimly.

Steve opened his mouth, but closed it again without saying anything.

That night, when she shuddered awake, remembering children trapped in rubble, he held her for the first time since they'd arrived in France. He was still too injured for anything else, unfortunately, but the comfort of another person and shared experience helped. She didn't regret a thing; it didn't stop her from dreaming. She told him of Ares' last battle, then, of holding a battered vehicle over Doctor Maru with every intention of erasing the woman from the world.

"Did you?" he asked her. His voice was calm, without judgment.

Diana shook her head. "I remembered you, and all that humans could do. Ares tempted me, as easily as he did a human, but I chose not to give in. And if I could do it, so could every other human. It's a choice."

Lucille, still recovering from her operation, and young Diana, as the child had been named, helped too.

"War took my brother and husband," she said, distant where she was usually sharp. "But you saved my daughter, and me."

"I will run like you one day," her elder daughter said, which helped even more.

Once Steve was able to walk, they went to the pier to watch sunrise over the sea, the sky filling with light. The ocean was a plane of rippling glass that sloped to the edge of the earth, the calmest it had been for three days, and Diana breathed in the salty air. Steve's eyes on her felt like a warm touch, and she turned to find him watching her, gently affectionate; she had never seen him without a nervous edge before, without teetering on the edge of time running out, and she liked it.

It wasn't Themyscira, and there were no borders in this world that could keep everything else out. But there were things here she liked too; things she could love.

It was there, by the sea, that news came of the Kaiser's abdication and the first Armistice signed. Soldiers along the Western Front had stopped fighting. Steve's mouth drew thin learning of thousands of Americans killed in the last push–how many thousand, it was not yet known–but it didn't stop him from sagging in relief.

"I guess killing Ares did help end the war," Steve said in disbelief, when Diana gave him the rest of the tale.

"Oh, so _now_ you believe me," she teased, and Steve gasped out a laugh.

"I'm human. I'm capable of all sorts of things, like changing my mind." He glanced at her. "Do you want breakfast? To read the newspaper?"

Her smile was slow to come, and from the way his breath caught, said _entirely_ what her mouth didn't. "Lets start there."

 

 

When she dreamed, she dreamed of peace, and the slow unfurling of love.

 _There are no lies or truth there,_ the sea whispered back. _Only dreams that become reality if you wish deeply enough, if you fight hard enough._

 

 

fin.


End file.
